Several developments have taken place with regard to providing suction catheter assemblies for use in obtaining respiratory tract secretions and in treating respiratory distress in infants and young children. Continued improvements have been sought for such suction catheter assemblies, including providing a catheter assembly which will reduce the chance of causing respiratory infections, to reasonably assure that the catheter suction control valve is not inadvertently left in an open position, preventing cross contamination to the caregiver using the catheter assembly, minimizing twisting and manipulation problems associated with using the catheter assembly, and related problems known to those skilled in the art.
There has also been a need for improvements in suction catheter assemblies for use in treating infants and young children which includes providing an access port for the administration of fluids using a second catheter tube to enable the user to have more options to administer treatment without disconnecting the apparatus from the patient thereby reducing the chances for contamination. Still further, there has been a need to develop respiratory suction catheter assemblies which are hermetically sealed without the use of solvents to secure the parts to each other, and catheter assemblies that include a housing or manifold including an irrigation port which is operable to be swiveled with respect to a manifold part to improve ease of use. To these ends the present invention has been developed, taking into account the improvements in suction catheter assemblies described and claimed in our copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/175,627, filed Jul. 6, 2005, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. The subject matter of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/175,627 is incorporated herein by reference.